You'll find roughly the same amount of hate for any Zelda if you dig hard enough (sans Zelda 2, but that game kicked the shit out of people). It's ot like FF12 where it's unusually divisive.

Some people just don't like certain games. I feel that they are worse off for it, but it can't be helped.

Nah, it's just the Zelda Cycle at work. Ever since Majora's Mask, there has been an angry sect of people that spend all of their time bashing the most recent Zelda game. When the next game comes out, they all move to that and bash it to death while their opinion on the previous game does a drastic 180.

Case in point - Wind Waker. Even after the whining over the visuals died down and the game came out, it was viciously attacked as being a "watered down" Zelda. Now that Twilight Princess is here, most of them have changed their tune. There's a lot more people out there calling WW a masterpiece now, while TP gets knocked for having too big an overworld, dungeons that are 'too long,' cutscenes that are 'too epic,' etc.

Apparently not.  But I didn't see the same creativity in level design the past Zelda games had.  Instead, I saw a lot of reusing the same ideas of the past but in rather bland ways.  And trying to take those ideas and stretch them so far and make them so 'grand' that they lost all meaning and 'fun' factor.  In essence, there's meaning behind the simplicity and seemingly straightforward designs of the previous Zelda games, whereas Twilight Princess (and Wind Waker to a certain extent) felt like a mess of circular rooms, hallways and tasks (busywork) that eventually led to a boss battle.  I hardly think pushing ice blocks to solve annoying puzzles or climbing up and down multiple levels and pulling levers to raise the waters level in the right direction is grand level design.  Just more like I said, busy work to make the dungeons longer.

And that's pretty much how I viewed the game in the end.  A game which was very pretty and 'technically' great, but suffered for it in gameplay.  Which is the opposite of how Zelda games usually are.

To be honest i love the fact that TP returned back to the style i preferred more, i always loved OOT, WW was ok, but too kiddy for me (even though i still completed it - too easy), TP is definately the better Zelda, I am looking forwards to the new Zelda for the Wii.

Well, I think you're the first person to ever tell me that, so.... here's that.

Sorry, I just don't see how you can see it that way. Faron Woods alone!

Yep. Replayed it maybe a year ago with a friend of mine, and it's a real gem. It's my 2nd favorite Zelda-game (only behind A Link to the Past). Love it to death, has so much cool stuff in it. I hope Zelda Wii is as great.

4 times, and not old

I am playing again after 2 years if not having the game

You must have skipped all those Twilight Princess threads for the last 2 years then.  My views are not alone.

And it doesn't come down to me thinking the game sucks compared to another Zelda game or me obsessing over one Zelda game and thinking Majoras Mask should be 'like' it.  I have liked nearly all Zelda games that have come before and to a certain extent, I liked Twilight Princess.  But not for the same reason as the past Zelda games.  Twilight Princess focused heavily on production values, story and characters (like Midna).  And while some of those characters were great (Midna probably the best character in a Zeldga game yet) and the graphics were amazing, the gameplay wasn't as good as past Zelda titles.  It was as I described, long and arjuious with even bouts of tediousness; such as having to do the stupid puzzle with the statues to get the Master Sword or collecting soup items for an Abominable Snowmans wife....nearly everything about the game screamed stalling and busy work and fetch quest instead of the usual strong Zelda level design.  I mean, are we playing Zelda or Resident Evil?

It also doesn't help that the farther you go into the game, the longer the levels get and the less interesting the game gets.  Probably the most interesting thing to do in the whole game was climbing on ceilings with the Iron Boots.  And you do that early on.

Never meant to imply that your views are in a vacuum, simply that no one had ever said such a thing to me.

Our experiences of the game could not be any more different, it would appear. I found the puzzles both fun, challenging, and organic, sensible in that they made sense in the conext in which they were presented. Faron Woods is the easiest example since I jusp layed through it again, but the use of the Gale Boomerang alone was petty stunning, especially for an introductory dungeon. The Yeti House was actually my favorite dungeon in the game, partially because I didn't realize it was a dungeon until I had gotten the map. The puzzle-solving in it, though, the way one interacted with the environment, was fantastic. Easily one of the strongest dungeons the franchise has ever produced.

I understand being frustrated with the Master Sword puzzle, but the Resident Evil comparison escapes me. Block-moving puzzles or logic puzzles are new to you in this series? I do not think I understand.

Again: it would appear that our experiences could not be more divergent.

And since I apparently will not be picking up Spirit Tracks for two more days, this may only be exacerbated in the intervening period.